SINCE the traffic jams have become part and parcel of our daily lives, it has now spread to the major roads that lead to certain tourist destinations, out of the summer Capital of Srinagar. I myself happened to be victim of these jams when I visited Gulmarg on a recent Sunday.
 Being weekend I thought would be a day of less traffic, but to my utter surprise near HMT (Shalteng Crossing) and at Magam, it was an overflow of traffic jam, creating chaos while the rising number of smoke belching vehicles, badly affected the ones stranded in the jams. It was truly a horrible experience.
 A week later on another holiday I drove to Pahalgam only to get stuck in jam at Pantha Chowk which reminded me of the Shalteng mess.
 Traffic jam is another area where precious man hours go unnecessarily waste and just imagine that if any emergency is heading for a hospital, then the patient can only look upto Almighty for mercy.
 As about the present traffic mess, even tourists are not being spared, by the time consuming jams. The tourists return to their homelands with a bad impression about Kashmir and this in turn has a negative impact on our tourism industry.
 As the situation is getting grave day-by-day, there is an immediate need to fix the traffic congestion. For this, the traffic police and the district administration need to chalk out strategies that can come handy for a solution because everything cannot be blamed on traffic cops alone. There are multiple reasons like bad roads, ongoing construction works and ofcourse the much awaited road widening, which together further the traffic mess.
By
Manzoor Ahmed Wangnoo
Nigeen
(The ideas expressed are author’s own)

Lastupdate on : Sun, 15 May 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
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